217 [Charles Francois Dumouriez (1739-1823) was an agent of the French government sent to support the Confederacy of Bar. He later became prominent in the affairs of his own country.]
218 [The Piasts were the first royal dynasty of Poland. In later times the name was used to denote any candidate for the Polish throne who was of native birth.]
219 [The italicised words are of foreign origin in the original text. For old Maciek everything not Polish is Muscovite or German. Gerwazy has the same way of thinking: compare p. [318].]
220 [Doubtless Maciek had heard of the excommunication of Napoleon by Pius VII. in 1809.]
221 The fashion of adopting the French garb raged in the provinces from 1800 to 1812. The majority of the young men changed their style of dress before marriage at the desire of their future wives. [On the kontusz see note [13].]
222 The story of the quarrel of Rejtan with the Prince de Nassau, which the Seneschal never concluded, is well known in popular tradition. We add here its conclusion, in order to gratify the curious reader.—Rejtan, angered by the boasting of the Prince de Nassau, took his stand beside him at the narrow passage that the beast must take; just at that moment a huge boar, infuriated by the shots and the baiting, rushed to the passage. Rejtan snatched the gun from the Prince's hands, cast his own on the ground, and, taking a pike and offering another to the German, said: “Now we will see who will do the better work with the spear.” The boar was just about to attack them, when the Seneschal Hreczecha, who was standing at some distance away, brought down the beast by an excellent shot. The gentlemen were at first angry, but later were reconciled and generously rewarded Hreczecha.
223 [Compare p. [100].]
224 The Russian government recognises no freemen except the gentry (szlachta). Peasants freed by landowners are immediately entered in the rolls of the Emperor's private estates, and must pay increased taxes in place of the dues to their lords. It is a well-known fact that in the year 1818 the citizens of the province of Wilno adopted in the local diet a project for freeing all the peasants, and appointed a delegation to the Emperor with that aim in view; but the Russian government ordained that the project [pg 354] should be quashed and no further mention made of it. There is no means of setting a man free under the Russian government except to take him into one's family. Accordingly many have had the privileges of the gentry conferred on them in this way as an act of grace or for money.
225 [Compare p. [296], and note [201].]
226 [“Before the inauguration of a better taste by Mickiewicz and other great writers, the so-called French or Classical school of literature in Poland produced a quantity of panegyrics or complimentary verses in honour of great personages, with stale classical images, and strained, far-fetched metaphors, destitute of real poetry. Our author has seized this happy opportunity of satirising the faults of classicism.”—M. A. Biggs.]